Unsolvable puzzles

In January, I started a study group for manual therapists. That means the time that I was putting into this blog, I transferred into putting together anatomy reviews for the group. Geeky, overly detailed, three dimensional graph kinds of anatomy reviews that barely scratch the surface of how I picture the anatomy in my head and in my hands. I absolutely love putting them together.

Delving into the anatomy deeper, I started thinking about how all the parts fit together, and all the parts that make up all the parts that are fitting together. Body tissues are made of cells and fluids that are dancing around in relationship, those cells and fluids are made up of molecules that are interrelating, those molecules are made up of atoms that are relating back and forth, and the atoms are made up of…….

It was here that I contacted my physics teacher from high school for my crash course on quantum physics. Several emails later…….

Atoms are made of particles that fit into two families. Protons and neutrons that are made of quarks and electrons are in one family. The other family includes photons. Protons and neutrons are connected and the electrons dance around those guys, and that makes an atom. And when two atoms start to relate to each other, they do so by tossing photons back and forth like a medicine ball. But the bottom line, to me, is that even at this teeny tiny level, they are moving around, relating to each other.

Zoom back to the bigger picture of a client on the treatment table, with the anatomy and the emotions and the spirit that goes with being a human on the table.

I really want there to be a direct connection between these small sub-atomic particles and the anatomy that has cells that breath, walk, talk, think and feel. Rationally, it should make sense. I should be able to trace the jumps from subatomic particle, to atom, to molecule, to cell, to fluid, to organ, to system, to person.

I can do that on a physical level.

I can sort of do it on an emotional level.

Emotions are cascades of neurons firing to release hormones. These hormones are molecules. The molecules swim around our bodies and our brain receives them and interprets them. These very concrete molecules have a concrete relationship with the nervous system and the organs. Then the next jump gets murky. Somehow, the brain turns these molecules into an experience of an emotion. Like “anger”. Like “fear”. Like “love”. It’s like magic. Amazing, beautiful, unexplained magic. It’s the unexplained part that has me frustrated right now.

I can almost do it on an energetic level.

In the energetic framework that I use, the Healing from the Core framework created by Suzanne Scurlock-Durana, Suzanne ties those emotions and energy back to the body tissues. If you are in a session and have an emotion or an energy that you want to work with, the first question is always, “Where do you feel that in your body?” And once you have identified it in the body, then you can be present with it, support it, and that support gives it an opportunity to change. So, I keep coming back to the thought that energetics, as well as emotions and spirituality, should have a concrete explanation on how it relates to the physical anatomy. A lot of the last two months, I have been struggling with the belief that if I just think about it enough, in the right way, that I will find the answer. (Suzanne would ask me where I feel that in my body, and I would tell her its right at the base of my skull, where my left temporal bone meets my occiput bone and wraps around to the front of my left neck, just under my jaw. Then she would tell me to ground and fill.)

Todd said the other day, “Humans are complicated structures that exist on many levels with multiple, interrelated complex systems.” And he is right. The “truth” about the way the physical anatomy relates to the energetic and the emotional part of being human is that there probably is a “link” or multiple “links” that connect everything together. Those links may not be linear, rational, or even physically anatomical as we know the anatomy at this point. Those missing links have me thinking in circles, like the computer at the end of the movie War Games playing Tic Tac Toe with itself. Eventually, the computer realizes that there is no winner, and it calls off the nuclear missiles. I am almost ready to admit that there is no “right” answer.

But on the other hand, those missing links are also what make “life” such a mysterious and mind-boggling gift. Like a unicorn.